1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• Our media product “Warren Grey” uses some of the conventions of a real thriller, such as:-
A protagonist (The man with the bag)
An antagonist (Warren Grey )
Both there roles are vital to the storyline, as the protagonist has taken the bag that belongs to Warren Grey, as he is trying to stop Warren Grey’s madness behaviour and stop him from becoming more of a villain than he already is. And as usual Warren Grey isn’t happy about this, and he wants his property back, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes. This storyline is typical of a thriller because it leaves the storey line open to many different outcomes to create suspense. This is done through camera work, mise en scene, sound, and editing.
We didn’t use low key lighting, as this would of created the wrong mood for our thriller. As this is suppose to be in the day, as you can see from the picture above we used natural lighting.
Our thriller conforms to the standard narrative structure. (Equilibrium, disruption, and resolution) even though you don’t get to see the resolution as it’s only the opening sequence.
The narrative is being driven towards solving the problem of the stolen bag.
Our product also conforms to the structure of oppositional characters, good vs. bad.
The product can also be a linear sequencing, because all the events that happen, are in order they are all course and effect, rather than things happening for no reason.
We used enigma codes in the narrative to raise questions to the audience, and make them think what’s going on. Such as Warren Grey says “ I have no problems digging a whole for you” this line is going to raise questions and make the audience feel worried for the other character.
We used these forms and conventions to make our product seem like a real thriller.
Our Opening sequence is similar to other thrillers, such as ‘What Lies Beneath’ as our music starts from the very beginning, and the tiles show in between the images of the sequence. This creates enigma and tension because the viewer wants to know more of what’s going on.
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• Our media product represents the social group of typical British ‘dodgy’ dealer, and then the problems that arise within that social group.
• Warren grey is represented to the viewer as being the dangerous one, who nobody messes with unless they want trouble.
• Everything about his character is represented in this way, for example with the use of mise en scene, costume plays a huge part in Warren Greys character, if he didn’t look dangerous, the viewer wouldn’t believe that he was, and then the product wouldn’t work. He maintains the look of being mysterious as he is all in black. We decided to make his character seem this way right at the beginning of the planning stage, costume decisions can be seen below on the blog, under costume and location ideas.
• Also body language helps to represent his character to the audience as he has his hands in his pockets, as if he is dangerous and a ‘dark’ character not to be messed with.
• Camera work and positioning in the frame are also key to representing Warren Greys character as the camera angle is a long shot, its keeping the audience a safe distance away from them, which helps the audience to realise he’s a dangerous character, and also the main character because of the positioning in the centre of the frame, making him seem more powerful and important in the frame.
• Also Warren Grey is walking into the darker low key lighting, from high key lighting which creates tension as the view instantly recognises something bad is going to happen.
• We decided to represent Warren Grey In this way because it made the sequence feel more realistic to have one main powerful henchman, to give the film some depth and overall structure to it. The representation of his character is a negative view, of this social group, but it wouldn’t work the same if he was represented in a different way, because then the audience wouldn’t identify with him as being the bad character.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• The kind of media institution that might distribute our media product would be icon film distribution, ( www.iconmovies.co.uk) because they not only produce and distribute mainstream films, but also independent films, so we could start by distributing our product in Art house’s at first until we have a fan base, and once that has been established we could then move up towards the mainstream cinemas. To create a fan base, trailers would probably be the best way to go as we can use the main star to attack the fans.
• Another reason why icon film distribution might be a good choice to distribute our product is because they are a UK based production and distribution company, and so they are more likely to want to be involved in our product because its been produced in the UK.
• Advertising and Marketing are also going to cost a lot of money, so buy icon distrusting our product in art houses rather than independent cinema’s is going to save a lot of money. We could use advertising such as:
• Posters at bus stops/train stations
• Magazines and Newspapers
• Local Radio stations
• Word of mouth (probably the best one)
• And packaging
• These forms of advertising are enough to get our product noticed and talked about, but still in budget for an independent realise at an art house.
• Choosing a distribution company such as icon is better than approaching a company such as 20th Century Fox, because they are such a well know distribution company they are not likely to want to distribute our product.
Icon will need full licensing from us to distribute our product.
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
• The audience for ‘Warren Grey’ would be mainly young males, starting from 18 upwards, the main target audience would be (18 to 24 year’s olds) as from the very beginning there is some strong language.
• I think this age group would be suitable for the thriller because audiences of this age have shown great interest in similar films to this thriller such as, The Usual Suspects directed by Bryan Singer. Audiences that have enjoyed films like the usual suspects might enjoy our media product too because it includes some of the conventions of the usual suspects, such as low key lighting (natural lighting), enigma codes, and standard narrative structure. Also audiences that have enjoyed ‘seven’ and ‘What lies beneath’ may enjoy our product because the music in the opening sequences, help to build tension and suspense, like our product does. They also make the audience want to see what the films about, without the opening sequence telling the whole story. Which I think our media product does.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
• At first before we began to discuss our ideas for the thriller, we thought about what makes people want to come and see a film. We came to the conclusion that to attack our audience we needed to have tension in our thriller
• and enigma codes to get the audience thinking about the narrative, and want to find out more about the characters and what was going to happen to the. And so the audience would be intrigued.
• We used narrative that might intrigue the views, so that they would find Warren Greys conversation with the protagonist enjoyable, and really want to keep watching to find out what happens in the rest of the film. We also used a high angled shot, so it looked like the protagonist is being watched from above, like on a CCTV screen. This adds tension to the sequence as it raises questions, and makes the viewer more involved with the character as it’s like they are watching him from above too. Which puts the audience at an advantage over the character.
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing
this product?
• The technologies we used to create the thriller were:-
A digital video camera
A digital camera (for photographs)
Apple Mac (computer) and software (imovie) for editing
A digital dicta phone
USB memory stick
Logic Pro to create the sound at the begging of the thriller
(music was not created by any of our group, but a music student)
• The first thing I learnt about the camera was the importance of the white balance. – When we first started filming I set the white balance on the camera and then began to shoot the first sense for the thriller. But by the next shot the footage wasn’t turning out the right colour, the screen on the camera looked slightly blue, and it ruined the second shot. I realised the white balance needed to be set each time using a white piece of paper, so that the camera could identify what white was.
• Secondly I learnt in editing how to cut each shot, to make it shorter, I had to press the ‘apple’ key and ‘T’ to split the shot where you want it to end, and then I pressed the ‘apple’ key again and ‘X’ to delete the part of the shot that wasn’t needed.
• In our peer evaluation a couple of people mentioned that we didn’t use any transitions to follow shots, which we didn’t use. I think it would improve our product a lot if we had, had used a wider variety of transitions between shots, such as fade out’s to show the passing of time, which would of made the thriller keep better pace.
• I’ve also learnt about sound, diegetic and non diegetic on and off screen. The music that we had created for us, was suppose to be parallel, so that when the opening sequence began, and the viewer could see the actors, the sound was parallel with them. But through a mistake with editing the music plays all the way through the opening sequence, and so it no longer matches with the characters movements as it should have done. I think changing this would improve our production a lot.
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
• From our first preliminary task, a lot of the peer evaluation’s we got back, said roughly the same things, so it was clear what we had gone wrong with the preliminary task, which make it easier to address what we needed to change as a group to improve for the full product. The issues that kept being mentioned were:
• Framing - because we didn’t have our main subject in the middle of the frame.
• The dialogue wasn’t very interesting
• The music that we made didn’t really fit with the sequence
• And the match on action came in slightly too late which really let the preliminary task down, as the peer evaluation showed.
I think we have improved with the framing and positioning of the characters for this task, because the main characters are in the centre of the frame.
We have made the narrative and the dialogue a lot more interesting that our first preliminary task, because we realised how important dialogue is to the audience to add tension, and meaning to the scene.
I think our continuity has improved a lot too, because we’ve kept everything within the 180 degree rule. And shot reverse shots were maintained keeping both characters on the right side.
• I’ve also learnt that it’s very difficult to get a group of people organised to meet at a certain time, in a certain place to get things done. We kept having to film on different days because the actor we had couldn’t make some days, and other times one or all of us couldn’t make the same day to film.
• I’ve also leant the importance of editing; editing a product right can make all the difference to it, by adding in transitions, and music, and just simply by cutting out small sections of shots can make the whole sequence seem so much better.
Posted By: Jo White. 10:19pm
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